ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Stepping into new territory, Alaska USATrust Company has added conduit lending services to its lineupafter nearly 20 years of offering securities lending to custodialagent services for fixed income securities.

The new service is the result of an agreement with LendEX,(www.lendexchange.com) institutional securities lending portal thatofficially opened on April 1 and is backed by former Securities andExchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt and John Tabacco, founderof an online stock tracking company.

With conduit lending, a financial institution acts a conduit orcredit intermediary between a borrower and the owner of thesecurities. Potential LendEX securities lending participantsinclude insurance companies, public and private pension funds,hedge funds, mutual funds, endowments and banks and broker dealers.Alaska USA Trust will act as a conduit for these potentialparticipants.

Alaska USA Trust President Glenn Cipriano said that securitieslending's growth combined with the use of more electronic toolswill transform the business.

“Five years from now, it's going to be a completely differentmarket,” Cipriano said. “It will be an institutional electronicexchange just like everything else. This looks to be the lastvestige of the broker to broker business.”

Alaska USA Trust, a wholly-owned subsidiary of $3.6 billionAlaska FCU, has more than $7 billion in assets underadministration.